Scott Craig Jones

A spontaneous photo shoot today yielded these photos of Scott Craig Jones of The Traveling Jones Theater.

These are costumes from "Anita Reedmore's Rock & Roll Book Report"

travelingjonestheater.com

Here's to a little spontaneous frivolity,

-Carmen Rose

2009 introspection - Theater

The life of a studio artist is a solitary one so to come up for air; I took a role in a locally written musical in February ‘09.  Little did I know it would hold some unexpected challenges.  I turned 40 in February and I had a 15 year acquaintance with infertility… and I was playing an 18 year old pregnant girl.  I had not seen the script other than at auditions; I had no idea what I was saying “yes” to when I accepted the role.

Each night I went from the announcement of the pregnancy, through the scenes wearing the pillow, on to holding the plastic baby in my arms.  The character and I did not get along.  There were times when the interaction between myself and “Molly” nearly flattened me.  I don’t know why I stuck it out, I suppose I have more determination than wisdom.  It was well beyond brutal.

(Me and Richard Adams, the composer of the music in the show.)

I’ve written and directed, and been on the stage as a musician and done some public speaking, but I hadn’t acted on stage beyond high school. I gained some excellent experiences, and met some fascinating people, some of whom are good friends to this day.  It was a time of convergences though, some health issues came to the surface, a relationship with a close friend hit the rocks, the character was breaking my heart a little more with each performance, plus I hosted a large reception the same day as one of the performances. All of that hit at once and as a result I was nauseous for the entire Feb-April production. The doctor called it a virus, I dubbed it “the Molly virus.” About 6500 people came to see the show, there was a lot of press, and each night there was a standing ovation.

(These are all my favorites: The guy at my knee played my husband, the ultra talented guy in the plaid was my father-in-law, the guy in the suspenders had some of the best lines in the show and was hilarious, and the other guy is the one who brought me to the auditions in the first place.  What a great bunch!)

The last curtain fell and I felt a great relief that it was over, I survived a little ragged around the edges, but I’d made it by leaning on a few close friends in the cast.  I’ll hold that experience and the people I learned to know and love there close to my heart.  I drew strength from my cast mates, whether or not they knew it.  What a gift they were to me!  I guess that’s what makes it such a bittersweet part of my year.  I played a personally difficult role, but I loved the people I was working with!

During production I managed to land a role in a summer musical with an amazing cast but opted instead to be behind the scenes as hair and makeup artist.  That was such a lovely experience that I continued to do hair and makeup for a variety of local community theater productions.

I was makeup artist for The Pajama Game with Oak Grove, Annie with ShenanArts and Tuesday Mourning with Waynesboro Players.  I got to see my talented friends perform in shows including Sweeny Todd, Ordinary People, Beauty and the Beast and others.  Plus, some of us would go and see shows together, that's always fun!  I saw a lot of shows this year!  Seeing a performance is always more fun when you know some of the individuals in the cast and there is some amazing talent in this area!

(Doing the bald cap for Daddy Warbucks was fun, and we had a lot of fun back stage at that show, I even tried on the bald cap myself one evening after the show was over.  Warbucks had melted by that point but I thought a bald me was very funny!)

2009 was my year to explore Community Theater, what a wild ride that was!  I discovered that I really enjoy being a makeup artist, and that was a new art media to add to the list this year… and a welcome addition.  Acting is not on that list!  Mercy no!

Makeup Artist

I'm one of the makeup artists for the local production of Tuesday Mourning. An article about the show is in our local paper and a little blurb on our local tv. It's written by a local playwright and the music is by a local musician.
They are in WW2 costumes...
Singing and having fun...
Throw in a little jitterbug dancing...
A big smile here and there...
And a very sad tale of the Bedford Boys. Thirty young men from Bedford, Virginia went off to fight in the war, 19 of them lost their lives at Omaha Beach on D-Day. It was the worst loss of any community of the country. The story is wretched, the music is excellent and the visuals are stark and somber. The cast is fun (one VERY ticklish!!) and I enjoy doing vintage hair and theater makeup.


BTW, this is blog post #199... and to celebrate my 200th post I will do a give away. All those who are "followers" of my blog will qualify. See the link to the right to become a follower. Thanks!

Makeup Artist

Over the last year I’ve done makeup for a number of theatrical productions locally.

This gentlemen was playing Heinzy in The Pajama Game.
She was also in The Pajama Game, and what a cutie!
How do you like her hair? That was fun and she loved it!I did makeup for Annie, I did the bald cap for Daddy Warbucks.
And this guy was a riot, I can't remember which character this was though. Every night of the production his look got a little stranger.
Daddy Warbucks had started to melt that evening, but I was enjoying play with the spare bald cap.

And I think that blue thing on my head is actually a skirt or something, that was funky.I won a costume contest with this vintage 1950's style look. We had a lovely dinner and entertainment that evening, and a guy rode through the dining room on a motorcycle!
This one is the creepiest one I've ever done: I don't use clown white, I used pure titanium dioxide and lots and lots of it. It wasn't easy to get off but still better than that clown white stuff. I call it "white girl in purple." This photo is kind of a fluke, it turned out overexposed and I decided that I liked it. These days I don't use regular makeup on myself, I make all my own mineral makeup from the foundations to shadows that I blend myself. It's easy and I enjoy playing with the colors!
These photos of me in pink are still some of my favorites that came together by accident. I took one look at my hair in the mirror one morning and clamped that hat on my head and left for work. I opened the gallery and looked in the mirror and decided that the hat needed the pink scarf and rose from one of the displays in the shop. A little later on I made the pink necklace to match. And by the time I made it home it was kind of a fun look so I had my hubby snap some photos out back. The house that we lived in at the time had been built by a crazy artist witch and she'd splashed that pink paint in various places on the outside walls (it was mainly glass, metal and concrete!) so of course I had to stand right in front of one of her big splashes. I loved that house.
This one almost looks like a 1920's flapper style look. Almost.
There wasn't anything on my to-do list that I felt like doing this afternoon, so I pulled out this Picasso painting and decided I was going to play around with this bizarre look. When I was finished my husband couldn't even stand to look at me, so I deduced that Picasso didn't like women very much. I suppose this is the strangest look I've ever done. It was fun though!
Now to decide who to be for the costume party Saturday evening! I have the mineral makeup, pigments and mica to mix just about any color, but which one? If you have some suggestions, leave a comment.
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PS... This is blog post number 197 and my 200th post will be a giveaway. To be eligible, just become a "follower" of my blog, link in the sidebar to the right.

Display and Dis Play

I’ve recently become Exhibit Chair at a local gallery. I create the displays and make sure the new work has a new home. (It has nothing to do with chairs – lol!) So I started working on the gallery ages ago doing planning but drove up yesterday to begin work on the more serious aspects of the transformation. I couldn’t finish the work yesterday so I had made the drive again today. And this afternoon at around four I finally had to quit because I had somewhere I had to be.

There are some forty artist’s work that I’m fitting into a modestly sized gallery in an old Art Nouveau building. I’ve only got a limited number of linear feet of wall space for wall stuff plus the 3D stuff that needs display fixtures and such. It’s a real juggling act and some people are supportive and (so far only one though when she speaks she says “we”) some are not. So I’m working hard at getting things put together in a way that works, trying to please people and hoping to be successful some of the time. Looks like I’ll need to go back for another day tomorrow because there is much to complete. The scale of the project is a little overwhelming, and so are some of the personalities.

This evening I went off to the theater. I’m one of three makeup artists working behind the scenes on a local production of Annie. We have a cast of 65, and all but one are between the ages of 3 and 20. I’m the one doing the bald cap for Daddy Warbucks and it is an adventure each evening. I’ve pinned more maid’s caps than I care to count as well as repeated makeup and hair changes between scenes. We’re taking people into full wig and makeup, and then back out again – all during the show. Many of them play a variety of roles, some even require aging for one scene and then going back to their youthful look in the next. It’s crazy back stage but it is fun.

This production is far more involved than the last one. I did makeup and hair for The Pajama Game (a cast of 26) and it was very straight forward. Once I finished the cast’s makeup and hair at the beginning, I could stay for the show or go home. Then I still had the evening to get some work done if I chose. In this case I’m working solid from around 4:30 until nearly 11:00. I put Ed into the bald gear, work through all the character changes and then take off the bald cap and clean him up at the end.

Theater and Gallery work are both excellent opportunities to express my creativity, so I'm enjoying it. It did make for a really long day.